Alabama Deploys National Guard in Response to Illegal Immigration Crisis

Move comes after millions of people have crossed the border without authorization since President Joe Biden took office.

A Texas National Guard soldier watches as an illegal immigrant walks into a makeshift camp in El Paso, Texas, on May 11, 2023. John Moore/Getty Images

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has pledged to send 275 National Guard troops to the southern border while blaming President Joe Biden’s policies for fanning the flames of the illegal immigration crisis.

With the move, Ms. Ivey joins other Republican governors in dispatching their military forces to help stem the tidal wave of people seeking to cross the border without authorization.

“Every state has become a border state under the current policies,” Ms. Ivey said in an Oct. 5 statement.

“Alabama remains committed to being an integral part of the mission to protect our Southern Border.”

Earlier, Ms. Ivey joined 24 other governors in writing a letter to President Biden on Sept. 19, blaming his policies for incentivizing illegal immigration, which they said had risen exponentially under his watch, “in some areas by nearly 850%.”

“States are on the front lines, working around-the-clock responding to the effects of this crisis: shelters are full, food pantries empty, law enforcement strained, and aid workers exhausted,” Ms. Ivey and the others wrote, citing an estimated annual cost of illegal immigration at federal, state, and local levels of at least $150.7 billion.

Citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, the governors pointed out that there have been more than 5.8 million illegal crossings since President Biden took office—and another 1.6 million “gotaways” who evaded capture.

In September, CBP recorded more than 260,000 illegal crossings at the southern border, marking an all-time high for a single month.

An aerial view of migrants waiting to be processed on the Mexican side of the border in El Paso, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2023. Brandon Bell/Getty Images/TNS

Biden’s Policies in Focus

Republicans have blamed President Biden for gutting the policies of his predecessor, President Donald Trump, whose pledge to build a wall was a rallying cry for a series of actions that they credit for yielding comparatively low numbers of illegal border crossings.

During his first 100 days in office, President Biden took dozens of executive actions on immigration, including ordering a halt to the construction of the border wall—which his administration is now rushing to resume in an embarrassing yet welcome about-face.

In early 2021, when the Biden administration stopped the ongoing construction of the border wall, the president claimed that his predecessor’s focus on constructing the wall was misguided and an example of his supposed inability to manage immigration and secure the border.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has denied that President Biden’s policies are to blame for the influx of illegal immigrants while accusing Republicans of turning the border issue into a “political stunt.”

Illegal immigrants climb a section of the U.S.–Mexico border fence in Tijuana, Mexico, on April 29, 2018. David McNew/Getty Images

‘Invasion’ at Border

One of the most outspoken critics of the Biden administration’s border policies is Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who on Sept. 20 declared an “invasion” at the southern border due to the surge in illegal immigration, while ordering the National Guard and law enforcement to assist with the crisis.

“I officially declared an invasion at our border because of Biden’s policies,” Mr. Abbott, a Republican, wrote in a post on X.

“We deployed the Texas National Guard, DPS, and local law enforcement. We are building a border wall, razor wire, and marine barriers. We are also repelling migrants.”

The governor’s office has also deployed more buses to ship illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities, such as New York and Chicago, saying that the state is “at capacity.”

A Texas National Guard soldier speaks to illegal immigrants at a high-traffic illegal border crossing area along the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 20, 2022. John Moore/Getty Images

While Republicans have long been tough on the problem of illegal immigration, Democrat governors are also getting fed up.

‘They’re Coming From All Over’

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, recently expressed frustration with the illegal immigration crisis gripping the Big Apple, telling would-be illegal border crossers to “go somewhere else.”

“They’re coming from all over,” she told CNN in an interview. “But we have to let the word out that when you come to New York, we’re not going to have more hotel rooms. We don’t have capacity.”

Illegal immigrants sleep outside the Roosevelt Hotel as they wait for placement at the hotel in New York on Aug. 1, 2023. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

Saying that New York City has run out of space and is at a breaking point, Ms. Hochul also threw her weight behind an initiative by New York Mayor Eric Adams’s office to suspend a decades-old “right to shelter” law that basically says officials must give shelter to anyone who asks for it.

According to New York City officials, more than 110,000 illegal immigrants have come to the city over the past year, with about 60,000 living in the city’s shelter system, costing billions of dollars per year.

Ms. Hochul, too, has called in the National Guard, but in New York’s case, the troops are being deployed locally to help with case management operations meant to get illegal immigrants work permits and clear out some of the tens of thousands who are crowding the city’s shelters.

New York City officials are pressing ahead with an effort to suspend the right to shelter law, asking the state Supreme Court to modify the mandate, which they have described as “onerous” and “demonstrably ill-suited to present circumstances.”

So far, New York City has spent more than $2 billion dealing with the influx, and Mr. Adams’s office has said it expects that to climb to $5 billion by the end of the fiscal year.